“A very sad thing indeed.”
White Knight
Despite previously using artificial intelligence tools to help resuscitate old John Lennon vocals, fellow Beatle Paul McCartney is now singing a different tune about the tech.
As the Guardian reports, the benighted Beatle has issued a statement ahead of the UK parliament’s debate over amending its data bill to allow artists to exclude their work from AI training data. In it, McCartney warned that AI may take over the industry if nobody takes a stand.
“We[’ve] got to be careful about it,” the Beatle said, “because it could just take over and we don’t want that to happen, particularly for the young composers and writers [for] who, it may be the only way they[’re] gonna make a career.”
“If AI wipes that out,” he continued, “that would be a very sad thing indeed.”
Then and Now
McCartney’s new position on AI comes just over a month after the Grammy Awards announced that the final Beatles song, “Now and Then,” had been nominated for two awards — making it the first AI-assisted track ever to get the nod from the Recording Academy.
Though the track was made using AI, it wasn’t the generative type that’s been getting immense buzz lately. Around the time the song was released, McCartney revealed that engineers had used AI tech known as “stem separation” to lift the assassinated Beatle’s vocals from an old demo.
“There it was, John’s voice, crystal clear,” the Wings singer said in a press release about the song and titular album last year. “It’s quite emotional. And we all play on it, it’s a genuine Beatles recording.”
Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr added in that statement that the AI tech that helped bring Lennon’s vocals back to life was “far out.”
“It was the closest we’ll ever come to having him back in the room,” Starr expounded, “so it was very emotional for all of us.”
Be that as it may, both McCartney and Starr’s names are absent from a popular petition against the unauthorized use of artists’ work by AI companies. Most recently, “Running Up That Hill” songstress Kate Bush became one of the more than 36,000 signatories to join the anti-AI campaign, which also features well-heeled endorsers across industries including Julianne Moore, Stephen Fry, and The Cure’s Robert Smith.
It’s not quite “AI for me but not for thee,” but the remaining Beatles’ absence from the petition feels noteworthy as their home country prepares to debate whether to sign AI restrictions into law.
More on AI and musicians: The AI That De-Ages Eminem Into Slim Shady Is Astonishingly Bad
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